Wreck-it Ralph

For a Christmas present, we took our nephews to see Wreck-it Ralph, a Disney movie about video games. It was awesome.  We went to Cici's Pizza first.  Justin thought the movie was great.  It was in 3D, hence the hipster glasses.

Don't let Nancy's open eyes fool you.  She fell asleep in the theater about halfway through the movie.

Happy 3rd Birthday Hazel!

We had Hazel's 3rd birthday party in conjunction with her cousin, whose birthday is in November.  It was at a nearby playground.  Aunt Laurel made great tu-tus, as seen in this picture.  We had a really good time playing outside with our friends and family.

Here, Hazel is wearing a new birthday hat from Aunt Deena.

Happy Birthday!

Ballet lessons came as a gift.

Out and About Town

Because our house was often a renovation nightmare, we liked to get out and window shop.

Here, Hazel is window shopping for this big cookie.

And then she tried to pull a fast one on us by getting in James' stroller.  No babies were squished in the taking of this picture.

Shopping can be exhausting, though.

But if you end the night in style by going out to eat in your tu-tu and firemen's hat, it all works out.

The Blessings of Extended Family

In college, Justin spent a lot of time with his Great Uncle and Aunt Pete & Deena in Ocala.  I'm so glad that I got to know them, because they have been such a warm, happy part of my life ever since.  

Not only are they great, but their daughter Karen and her husband Matt are so much fun and their kids are a blast.  They lived about half way between our house in South Florida and Jacksonville, so we got to visit them once or twice, especially when James the Car Screamer drove us crazy.

Here's one day trip we took.  They rule their cul-de-sac.

We're looking forward to spending time with them again soon!

Parks and Rec

Hazel has always loved parks.  This is a picture from the first park we found in South Florida when we were looking for a place to live.  These pictures, of course, are from much later, but we always liked to return to this park because it had a shaded canopy.  We had Hazel's second birthday here.

Hazel is really strong from all of the playing.

She loved putting her My Little Ponies from Aunt Jane down this slide.

And Baby James just liked to sleep.

Halloween 2012

Having a baby on October 10 didn't stop us from going trick or treating October 31!  We went to a nice neighborhood near our house with our friends.  Hazel went as a ballerina.  James went as a baby.

Not actually a Halloween picture, but Hazel did like to dress up.

Baby James Comes Home

With Hazel, we only stayed 1 day at the hospital.  We learned from that and stayed 2 days with James.  Once we got home, however, Hazel was so happy to see her baby brother.

She loves to hold him and pat his head.

James was dozing here, but he was and is an active boy.

Baby James

Nancy can feel free to come behind me and edit this post, but I think it is safe to say that James was an easier birth than Hazel.  We got to the hospital at about 9 p.m. on October 9, 2012.  Nancy wasn't quite dilated enough, but she was having regular contractions, so we walked around the Coral Springs hospital a bit.  I think we watched Full House in an empty wing of the hospital.  

Nancy's epidural worked this time, so she was pain free.  We watched a little bit of Dancing with the Stars once we got admitted, I listened to the Hunger Games books on tape, and we dozed until the morning time.

Nancy's midwife never showed up, even though they called her, so the worst part was that Nancy had to wait to push for about 40 minutes after she wanted.  It turns out it was in the middle of a shift change and the first doctor didn't want to come in, but the second one, a military doctor, came in and delivered James lickity-split.  

James was healthy and happy.  He even nursed, to our relief.  We moved to a private room, which we thought was going to be expensive but our good ol' federal insurance kicked in and paid for it.

Hazel, unfortunately, was still sick, so even though she came to visit her baby brother in the hospital, she wasn't able to stay long.

The Coming of Baby James

Baby James was a trooper in his mommy's tummy.  There sure was a lot of adventure and excitement around the house while Nancy was pregnant with all of the home remodeling.  But Nancy stayed in great spirits and felt much better overall during the pregnancy.

One soda is for Nancy and the other is for James.

 This was our last picture as a family before James was born.  We left right after this picture was taken to go to the hospital.  Thank goodness Granny and Papa came down to take care of Hazel.  She wound up getting really sick, so as soon as James was born, I came home and gave Hazel a priesthood blessing, took a shower to get rid of the germs, and then went back to the hospital.

Here is a profile before the baby came!

Arbor Day

One of my favorite memories of South Florida was going for walks around the defunct golf course we lived on.  On one occasion, Hazel found this tree shedding and tried to plant it.  

The Hazards of Renovations

The renovations in South Florida took from February 2012 until May 2013.  We made do, though.  Here, Hazel is pushing Elmo in my electrical fish-tape used to pull wire through the walls.

Fourth of July 2012

For the Fourth of July in 2012, we went to our ward's parade.  Hazel patriotically rode her tricycle.  Because she was asleep, we wound up watching fireworks from our driveway later that night.  We did not know at the time that driveway fireworks would become an annual tradition.

Resurrection

Our last post, more than a year ago, was for Easter.  It is only fitting that we now resurrect the blog by mentioning Easter again.

Easter is when we celebrate Jesus Christ's resurrection from the dead.  Our family believes that because Jesus was resurrected, he has made it possible for us to be resurrected as well.  Thus, though we will one day die, we know that we will live again.  This belief is not uncommon in Christianity.  One thing that makes our beliefs special as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is that we believe we will also be able to live with our families again once we are resurrected.  That is why we get married in the Temple: so we can be sealed together for not just this life, but for eternity as well.

Because family is so important to us, we are going to back-fill some of the important events of the past year from our last post so that we can have a nice family journal, both for our own memories and for our posterity.

Easter 2012

  We had a great family Easter.  Easter is one of our favorite holidays.  

  Here we are dying Easter eggs.  

 

 

  Check out those hands!

 

  Hazel enjoyed opening her Easter present from Grandmommie.

 

 

Ta da!

    Of course, we had an Easter egg hunt, too.  Hazel had a bad experience with the Easter bunny at the mall.  When we told her that the Easter bunny had come in last night and lost a bunch of his Easter eggs, she was not at all sure that she wanted to get out of bed.  She told Mommy to help him find the eggs, then Daddy.  We then convinced her that her new bunny stuffed animal she'd gotten really attached to her had snuggled with her all night in bed and wasn't scary.  At that point, she was ok with the idea.

  

   Rockin' Elmo had this particular purple egg.

 

  Here's Hazel with her full Easter basket.

 

  The special golden egg was hidden under a lovey in her bed.

  The prize for the golden egg was a new baseball set.  Hazel's really been into baseball lately.  We played it at Grandmommie's house, and I think she's always remembered it from there.

 

  It is amazing how observant Hazel is.  She must have seen someone pound the "home plate" before taking a swing several months ago.  Now she won't hit the ball, nor let you hit the ball, unless you've pounded the ground first.

 

 

Nancy and I really get into Easter as well, even if Hazel isn't interested in the particular activity.

  Here are Nancy and I making "Risen Rolls."   They are crescent rolls filled with a buttered-and-sugared marshmallow.  The marshmallow represents Jesus Christ and the roll represents the tomb.  You bake it in the oven and the marshmallow disappears, just like the Resurrection.

 

Demo-licious

We had a water leak in the guest bathroom.  We also were not fans of the seashell wallpaper.  In order to solve our problems, we decided to demolish the guest bathroom.

First, a picture of what the bathroom looked like before we bought it:

The cleverly placed wastebasket to the left of the toilet is covering some wallpaper that had lost its adhesiveness.  That should have been a clue that there was water damage back there, but our home inspector didn't catch it.  We will be sure to research good inspectors next time.

I haven't been doing a great job with before and after pictures, so I decided to take a picture of the bench seat by the bathtub before I got too far into demolishing it.

 

If you look along the bottom right, the dark, discolored area was damp to the touch.  I thought we had an exterior water leak from the window or block.  We even had a general contractor who works for our homeowners' association come out.  He agreed.

 

This is what was lurking behind that waste basket.  I'd already cut out a section of drywall, but you can see the mold and water damage to the right of it.

 

Here it is after I removed the bench seat.

 

Our house is supported by metal beams rather than wooden two-by-fours.  Here are the rusted beams supporting the bench seat and the damp left bench seat wall.

See ya later bench seat!  After removing the toilet, I discovered the problem: the toilet flange and wax gasket that connect the toilet to the waste line were broken.  Every time you flushed the toilet, some of it would not go out, but would seep under the tile, bench seat, and vanity.  Gross. 

Here's the finished view of that wall.  The vanity, toilet, mirror, and bench seat are all gone.  The pink on the wall is insulation that I haven't finished removing yet.

 

The miracle of this whole project is that Justin was able to remove almost all of this while Hazel slept.  She never woke up, either at night or during her Saturday nap!

Now, the question is what to do with this space, particularly the bench seat area.  We're open to suggestions!